Watch this video clip from CNBC yesterday. This is a major media network discussing what could very well become the biggest economic threat any of us have seen in our lifetimes. This is serious stuff, folks. Pay attention to what Matt Simmons has to say about a potential crunch hitting the USA (and the world I expect) in late summer as oil demand is projected to surpass available supply.

In the last few years I’ve spent more time learning how to prepare food. While I’m still no wizard in the kitchen, I am learning and there are a few things I can actually do better than my wife, who is quite the cook. Most of these talents are based around fermented foods: bread, beer and wine. The process of fermentation brings many benefits to food; it can improve the flavors and nutritional value as well as greatly lengthen the amount of time it can be stored before spoiling, even without benefit of refrigeration.

With my interest in fermenting piqued, I recently picked up the book “Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Cultured Foods” by Sandor Katz. Part recipe book and part manifesto, “Wild Fermentation” is a very good introduction to the world of fermented foods and beverages. In its pages, Katz details the nutritional benefits of fermenting, along with a discussion of how modern society’s obsession with eradicating bacteria and micro-organisms is in many ways counter-productive to the health of both our bodies and the planet as whole. There is a personal angle to Katz’ discussion on health; he is a long-term HIV/AIDS survivor and believes that having fermented foods making up a large part of his diet enhances his body’s ability to heal itself. He also briefly discusses the history of fermentation throughout history, showing that most every culture in the world has a history of fermenting food.

The Government Accountability Office is the closest thing we have to a neutral, non-partisan research body in the federal government. They are the government’s auditors, and are one of the few bodies that seem to regularly rise above the usual partisan BS that inundates Washington D.C. to deliver factual information regardless of it’s content or political sensitivity.

Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) asked the GAO to investigate the theory of peak oil, and to see how well prepared the United States is for the ramifications of a permanent decline in oil production. Well, the GAO has finished their investigations, and their conclusions will dismay cornucopians and techno-optimists. Peak oil is a real threat, and while they don’t know when oil production will peak, once it does, it could be very harmful to the US economy and way of life. The closer peak is, the worse the effects will be.

I apparently jumped the gun in my whining about missing the Tiger’s Eye Seeds from Seed Savers… they arrived today. I didn’t see any mention of these seeds shipping in a separate package, but that may very well be just me not paying attention, which, as my wife would tell you, is quite common.

For those of you in the Upper Midwest aspiring to be car-free, or at least reduce your use of the automobile for long-distance trips, here’s another option for you – Megabus. A one-way trip from Minneapolis to Chicago for $25 is pretty good. You’d have trouble driving there that cheaply, and it’s less than half the price for riding Greyhound…

Unfortunately, Minneapolis is the northwestern-most city Megabus serves, with the hub of their service network located in Chicago. It appears that they are expanding their operations as time goes on, and another inexpensive option for public transportation can only be a good thing.

It’s late March in Minnesota, and I’m sitting here with the windows open, wearing shorts and a T-Shirt while I’m writing this post. We shattered the high temperature record for today, topping out around 83F or so. Freakish weather for this time of year. I celebrated it by cleaning four month’s accumulation of dog crap in my backyard, supervised by my son. More compost for the scrub pines growing in the back corners of my yard. Woe be unto any of the neighborhood kids that dare fool around back there.

We celebrated my daughter’s first birthday on Sunday. My wife’s family tradition is to throw a huge party for the extended family, so we invited nearly 30 people, most of which attended. My wife made her fabulous lasagna, and I received several requests to make the Pane Rustica that I am now famous for. So, I started fermenting four loaves of sticky dough the night before the part, and then baked the bread in shifts.

If you haven’t read about the rising wave of problems with crashing bee populations worldwide, get on Google and check it out. In a nutshell, bee colonies are dying off around the world, and no-one really knows why. There are several possible reasons people are talking about:

Some suspect that increasing infestations a few types of mites might be doing it.

There’s plenty of information out there, and most of it is ominous. One of Albert Einstein’s famous quotes is making the rounds lately with regards to this, and it bears repeating here:

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

So, if you have any open space in your yard, plant a pollinator garden. If you don’t, spread the word with friends and family. This affects all of us in the end. I’m doing my part, and I hope you can do yours.

For some links on what to grow, you can consult your local county extension office, or you can check out some of the following links: